MUSIC MAGAZINE EVALUATION Godfrey Mercado

My Final Products Front CoverContents Page

My Magazine Double Page Spread

Forms & Conventions In what ways does my magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines? Front Cover: In my opinion I feel that my magazine follows a range of forms in most conventional magazines and at the same time I feel it challenges them as it has it’s own original look to it. Firstly we can see that my magazine has the crucial components of a front cover which are conventional in most magazine such as: Masthead, Sell Lines, Issue Number, Barcode, Main Image, Feature Article, slogan and Teasers. Although the contents appear on most conventional magazines, I think the structure in which I had placed them in makes my magazine unique. Also most magazines have their main image concealing some parts of the masthead however I decided to subvert from that layout as my main image’s focus was quite small, so if I enlarged the image it would have taken up too much space on the page and there would have been no space for sell lines etc. In addition my magazine is not as prestigious as other magazines, so if I covered the masthead people will not be familiar with my magazine and may not recognise it at all. Furthermore like most magazine they have a colour scheme that will run throughout the whole page and this links into my magazine. As you can see I have used three main colours and they also match the colours in the main image. In relation to the image I have a sell line that relates to it which is apparent in most conventional magazines. Lastly another way my cover follows most magazine conventions is the slogan. Like most magazines my slogan is located right underneath the masthead and this make the slogan almost iconic for the masthead. Although my front cover follows most conventional forms in real music magazines there are some aspects in which my magazine challenges them. One way my magazine challenges the form of most magazines is the promotional sticker that is found on the front. Stickers are found on some magazines however they can be removed, yet my magazine is just an image of a sticker so it cannot be removed, so the price of the magazine always stays the same and becomes a permanent promotional item for my magazine. Furthermore most magazines have barcodes on the other hand mine does but it is placed at a 90degree angle, this gives the magazine a better and fresher look also allowing more space for more important things to fit on the page. In addition my magazine has a competition on it although that may not be challenging conventional form, the addition of the image of what could be won makes the teaser much more attractive as the reader can actually see what they could win and at the same time it makes the page look more interesting.

Contents Page: My contents page includes many conventional forms such as: Title, Contents list, Article Images, Editor’s Note and contact details. One noticeable form which I had added was the website on the side which I had added for the readers to be able to read more about the magazine and contact the author’s/company themselves. However my magazine challenges this convention as the website is rotated 90 degrees meaning the reader would have to turn the page in order to read it this in turn makes the page look interesting and different and at the same time a way to fill up space. Also I added images which appear on most magazine contents pages however to challenge this structure I made the bigger article a much smaller size image compared to the smaller articles. I decided to do this because I had thought that the main article had taken up much of the front page and wanted to showcase the other articles more than the main feature article. Lastly for the contents list I made the numbers a different font and the blurb of the contents a different colour which made each part stand out. Those components are apparent in most magazine however the configuration e.g. change in size and font do not appear on most magazines. This gives my magazine a different look and makes the numbers and letters easier to distinguish. Double Page Spread: The contents which I had created consist of many conventional forms: Title, Main image, article content, blurb and captions. One way that my DPS follows conventional forms is with the title which located at the top of the page. However unlike most magazines the title is just a word with other sell lines supporting it and all together it makes a bigger title. Also instead of the title being on one page, it is spread and appears on both pages of the DPS. This allows the title to be viewed from both pages and gives the page a better look and avoids there being blanks spaces like some magazines. Also I had added captions to the image which are on most DPS spreads on magazines however I made the captions quotes instead of the editor explain what the image is about. This gives the image a more deeper meaning as the people themselves tell you what the image is about. Lastly my DPS has a similar layout to an interview with questions and answer however it does not have a proper order as the questions are a little independent as in magazines the interviews are very closely linked and go in order, whereas my article doesn’t.

Presentational Issues How does your magazine represent particular social groups? My magazine represents the urban Hip Hop scene and tends towards the more ‘Ghetto’ with a demographic of the younger adults. This group of people are usually stereotyped as being bad and relate to such themes as Sex, Drugs and Violence. Also this demographic is normally frowned upon by the community and seen as the cause of most of the commotion and crime within the area. However my magazine tries to subvert from most of these themes, all except from sex because as we know; ‘sex sells’. My main article shows regular people from the streets but show that they’re not fuelled by drugs and money but are making their music because they love it and this should conflict with the stereotypes given about this demographic/target audience. So in conclusion I feel that my magazine does not directly represent any social groups, however connotations can be drawn by some of the language and content which is within my magazine which can then be linked to a social group; which will probably end being my target audience.

Target Audience Who was the intended target audience for my magazine? My magazine was aimed towards people between the ages of mainly of an ethnic background and live in the middle class – low class parts of London. Also my target audience would be people who are interested into Hip Hop and Rap and those that watch MTV Base or those who are familiar with Hip Hop fashion and culture. With this in mind I based my front cover in attracting this target audiences by making features that would attract that kind of demographic. Furthermore to find out what my target audience were interested in I created a questionnaire and with the results it gave me an understanding of what my target audience were keen on and what I would need to do in order to attract them to my magazine. Although my magazine appealed to widely aged audience I feel that my magazine was more towards a male audience however not by much as there were some things that would attract a female also, however most of my content would attract a male rather than a female.

Addressing the readership How did I attract / address My Target audience? In order to attract my target audience into buying my magazine I used aesthetical features that I thought would attract my target audience as well as using the results from my questionnaire. This included Images, Sell lines, Teasers, colour and language. More importantly I used colloquial language to attract the reader and make them feel comfortable as they can relate to the language used as they would be familiar with it as they use it themselves. Also I made sure that the language used was friendly and welcoming and that when I addressed them it felt like I involved the reader using such words as ‘You’ and ‘hey reader’. Furthermore I added teaser with such words as ‘Sexy’ and ‘Women’. These would attract the male side of my target audience as one of the themes in the Hip Hop is Sex and again it is known as a possible magnet for men in that ‘Sex sells’. For the female side of my target audience I have an article about fashion, and stereotypically women are know to be more fashion conscious than men, so this may be an aspect which I can address my female audience with. In addition the Mise-en-scene of the main images had people wearing clothes that people in Hip Hop and Rap would be associated with e.g. Hoodies and such accessories like Designer bags and big Jewellery. With this my target audience could be attracted as they have some relation to what the people are wearing as they may dress like that themselves. ‘Sex Sells’ Attracting males Colloquial Language ‘Fashion’ Attracting Females ‘Bling’

Institutions Where would my magazine be distributed? For my magazine I feel that there are a range of institutions that could distribute my magazine or of places that could be of possibilities. As my magazine has quite a wide target audience it would only be appropriate to have my magazine distributed in big institutions and places that my target market would probably visit. One big institution that my magazine could be distributed from is WHSmith. This is a big retailer for books, magazines and items such as pencils, pens etc. WHSmith sell a lot of magazines are they are all of different companies and genres. This variety in their stock show that the shop has plenty of different people that go there to shop. In conclusion it would seem that WHSmith is a good place for my magazine to be sold as so many people go there to buy magazines, and I’m sure that my target audience would probably pay a visit to that store and would happily buy it as WHSmith’s reputation as a wholesaler is very high. Another institution that could sell my magazine is Tesco. This supermarket sells a lot of material items including magazines and books. A huge number of people go there to shop everyday and some of those could be part of my target audience. So people could buy the magazine on their weekly trip to the shops. Lastly another institution that could sell my magazine are the shops where my target audience may tend to visit; more specifically clothes stores. Stores that I have in mind are Footlocker or other shops like New Era Store(Hat Store) and Size?(clothes store). These shops could sell my magazine as this is where my target audience would tend to shop for clothes and these shops sell items that are connected to people of my target audience. My magazine could be on the shop shelf and could be bought over the counter. These are all possible places that my magazine could be sold to my target audience.

Technical/Construction issues During the construction of my product I used a range of technology to construct my Front Cover, DPS and Contents page. For my audience research and planning I used programmes such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel to show the research I had undertaken for this project. I also used these programmes to construct some of my work e.g. Picture analysis and front cover analysis. The construction of my front cover was solely down to Adobe Photoshop CS4. Photoshop had plenty of image editing tools that helped me construct my front cover, contents page and DPS. As I had a thorough understanding of how to use Photoshop, I was able to create detailed effects onto the whole image and construct shapes to go on the page. I also used it to create the fonts with the text tool and it allowed me to create paragraphs or sentences that needed to be on the page. So for the construction of my page I needed Photoshop to combine the work I had such as Images, Text ideas and structure ideas. Crucial to my front cover was the images that I would use to create my articles and front cover. To take the images and especially High definition images I needed to use a good piece of equipment. So for my photography I used an Sony A200 SLR Camera of 10Megapixels and this gave me the highly defined images that I needed.

Comparisons of Preliminary to Final Work

Front Cover Front Cover: Noticeably my front covers look similar but there are some subtle differences that make a big difference to the quality of my final cover and at the same time set technical borders between my preliminary task and the final. Firstly the masthead in my preliminary task looked very simple with it being one colour throughout, however my final cover has effects added onto it giving it a more professional look such as colour gradients, textures and shadows. Also the structure of my final cover is very different to my preliminary as my first cover had too many sell line on it and it looked as if I stuffed as much information onto the page making it look unprofessional and as well as that I had page number on the front cover which eliminated the purpose of there being a contents page. Unlike my first cover my final cover only had page numbers on the teasers and I lowered the number of sell lines that were on the page. Furthermore I only had one main image instead of a range of images on my front cover compared to my preliminary cover making the focus concentrated on the main image but the images missing from the cover, were added to the contents page. In addition my main image did not cover the masthead like my preliminary cover. Apart from these differences there were some similarities but ere tweaked to make them seem more professional for example the price. On my preliminary cover the price was noticeably too large and most professional magazines would not make their price that big, so instead of removing it from my cover completely I just made the price look like a sticker giving it a professional look and making it seem like a promotional price instead of the standard RRP. Lastly I included a competition on both covers however on my final cover decreased the size of the competition as I felt it was very big on the first cover taking focus away from the main article. Although it is a teaser I still made it big enough for the reader to notice it however it does not take away as much focus from the foreground image of the main article.

Contents Page Contents Page: In contrast to my front covers there are plenty of big difference between my preliminary and final contents pages. The areas where there are major differences are: Images, Mise-en-scene, content, structure and content. Firstly the aspect which is noticeable immediately is the images. In my preliminary task there is only one image displaying only one story whereas my final contents page has more images showing a range of stories instead of the one. Also some of the images reflected some of the sell lines that were on the front cover unlike the first contents page which didn't anywhere else apart from the contents page. In addition the contents detail was decreased from the first contents and the final contents page as I feel that the first contents page had too much detail into the story of the article and may get the reader bored or unhappy as they would have found out too much about the article already, whereas my final contents page gave a quick, short and snappy blurb to briefly explain what the article was about. Furthermore there is a bigger difference between the sizes of text compared to my first contents page as well as that the blurbs of the contents is a different colour to the title of the article which is different to my first contents page as the text were mainly all the same colour and text. Secondly there is another major difference where on my final cover there is an editor’s note so it makes it look more professional and have more depth as it shows more insight into what the magazine would be about. Compared to my preliminary my contents page hardly contained anything which gave any other insight of the production of my magazine. Lastly I included contact details of the magazine company which is crucial in making seem professional as most professional magazine companies have ways in which people can contact them and in my final contents page I included a websites in which readers can refer to in contrast to the lack of any contact details on my preliminary task. Overall I like my final contents page by far and feel that the technical and aesthetic differences are far apart with the final contents page being the best.